Agricultural Fertilizers: French People Contaminated with Cadmium, Alert Private Doctors

French people, especially children and women, are massively contaminated with cadmium via phosphate fertilizers used in agriculture , which are found in particular in breakfast cereals, warn private doctors, calling for the preference of organic food.

"There is an explosion of contamination among young children," linked to "their consumption of everyday foods such as breakfast cereals, bread and bread products, and potatoes," the Regional Unions of Healthcare Professionals - Independent Doctors (URPS) and their national organization stated in a press release published on the occasion of World Environment Day on Thursday.

These organizations sent a letter to the Prime Minister, as well as to the Ministers of Health and Agriculture, on Monday, seen by AFP, to express their "great concern about the contamination of French people, particularly women and children, with cadmium." This "is largely attributed to the spreading of phosphate fertilizers containing too much cadmium," the doctors pointed out.

The national nutrition and health studies (ENNS) in 2006 and ESTEBAN in 2014-2016 showed a "doubling of the average contamination of French people (0.57?g/g compared to 0.29?g/g)", and the contamination of French children is four times higher than that of American or German children, according to the URPS.

"Children already have absolutely astronomical rates," and "women are more contaminated than men, particularly because a quarter of them have iron deficiencies," cardiologist Pierre Souvet, president of the French Environmental Health Association (ASEF) and a member of the environmental health working group of the National Conference of URPS-Prison Doctors, explained to AFP.

"Because when you have an iron deficiency, intestinal absorption of cadmium can be multiplied by four," he said. Smokers - cigarettes contain it - and people exposed to emissions from industrial activities such as metallurgy are also more impregnated, according to the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES).

On Thursday, ANSES told AFP that it should publish "at the end of the year" its ongoing work to assess human exposure to cadmium, in order to define "levers for action to reduce the exposure of the French population."

The URPS, which will distribute information documents in medical practices, is campaigning for the implementation of "pathology screening strategies" among those most at risk.

More than 16,000 scientific articles attest that cadmium - a "toxic metal omnipresent in our environment which can contaminate soil, water and even air," according to ANSES - "accumulates in the body over the years" and is "one of the greatest toxins in existence," these doctors relayed.

Since studies have shown an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer mortality and overall mortality linked to cadmium contamination, the latter must be "as low as possible", argued the URPS.

And the organization has called on the government: "Has there been a reduction in the maximum authorized dose of cadmium to 20 mg/kg of phosphate fertilizers, as recommended by ANSES in its 2021 report?" To reduce this contamination, "we must prioritize organic food: this is an appeal to the authorities, we must not overwhelm this sector," Dr. Souvet told AFP.

The doctors urged the government to "strongly support organic food, particularly in schools." They lamented that it is "under numerous attacks," even though "in addition to its nutritional benefits, cadmium contamination is 48% lower on average."

In May, the Ministry of Agriculture announced a €15 million cut to the budget of the Organic Agency, which promotes the sector, plunging into uncertainty a sector already undermined by the decline in organic product consumption following a surge during the Covid-19 pandemic.

For Public Health France, cadmium is "a public health problem" and there is a "probable link with the surge in pancreatic cancer," the URPS (French Public Health Agency) said. The Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP on Thursday.